Wing Commander G W 'Johnnie' Johnson

Wing Commander G W 'Johnnie' Johnson, who has died aged 81, flew more than 60 operations against targets in Germany before becoming one of the Royal Air Force's most experienced test pilots.

After leaving the RAF, he embarked on a career in the aviation industry and played a leading role in the success of overseas sales of the Harrier and Hawk jets.

Johnson joined No 158 Squadron, flying Halifax bombers, at the height of the Battle of Berlin early in 1944. On his first operation over the "Big City", the radio communications with his two gunners failed immediately after take-off. He could justifiably have returned to base; but, conscious of the stigma of being thought "LMF" (lacking moral fibre) on his first operation, he decided to press on to the target, using light signals to keep in contact with his crew. Flying the same aircraft the next night, the fault recurred. Reflecting that he had got away with it the night before, he stayed with the bomber stream and dropped his bombs.

By the end of March, Johnson and his crew had flown 16 operations and losses had been so high - 16 crews in four operations - that they were the senior crew on the squadron. They were then transferred to the Pathfinder Force to fly Lancasters with No 635 Squadron at Downham Market. Priorities for Bomber Command had changed in the build-up to the D-Day landings, and supply dumps, marshalling yards and transportation targets in France were attacked.

Returning from one target early on June 15, Johnson and his crew were crossing the Thames Estuary at low level "when something overtook us going very quickly and apparently on fire". They had seen one of the first V-1s launched against London.

The Pathfinder force marked targets for the main bomber attack supporting the breakout from Normandy. Johnson flew as a marker against the V-1 sites in the Pas de Calais and the huge construction site at Wizernes before the bombing offensive against Germany was resumed. His aircraft was hit by flak over Kiel and then by night fighters. Despite the damage to his Lancaster, he landed safely.

By the end of October, Johnson had completed 62 operations, including 46 as a Pathfinder. He was awarded a Bar to the DFC he had been given earlier in the year for his "high standard of courage, determination and devotion to duty".

The son of a civil servant, George Walter Johnson (always known as Johnnie) was born on January 8 1923 at Camberley, Surrey. He was educated at Erith County School, Kent, and joined the RAF on his 18th birthday.

Johnson trained as a pilot in the United States before returning to England where, to his great disappointment, he was sent to be a flying instructor on single-engine aircraft. After a year trying to persuade the authorities to send him to an operational squadron, he was expecting to be posted to fighters, but found himself training on four-engine bombers.

After completion of his bomber tours, Johnson was sent to Transport Command before joining the RAF Mission to Australia and New Zealand to fly Dakotas. He first went to Canada to collect a new aircraft and then flew it from Montreal, via the Pacific islands, to Sydney. For the next year he flew freight and passengers between Australia and the Pacific staging posts occupied by the British and Commonwealth forces as the Japanese retreated; he flew into Hong Kong shortly after the Japanese surrender.

After a spell as the personal pilot to the RAF Chief of Staff (Australia), he returned to England and joined No 6 Course at the Empire Test Pilots' School. He was just 23, and had flown 2,500 hours on more than 20 different types of aircraft.

Johnson spent the next three years at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down during which he tested some of the early jet fighters and bombers. He conducted the hot weather trials of the Vampire jet fighter at Khartoum.

During a test flight to assess the efficiency of an airventilated suit being developed to keep pilots cool, the cockpit heating system stuck on hot, and Johnson just managed to land before passing out. The doctors lifted him clear of the cockpit and measured his body temperature before thinking of giving him some water.

Johnson returned to England to learn that he had been posted to Namao, Alberta, to join the Winter Experimental Flight to conduct cold weather trials. During two years in Canada, Johnson flew many aircraft to assess performance in extreme cold temperatures. This often involved taking aircraft to airfields in the Yukon and to Churchill on Hudson Bay where outside temperatures reached minus 45 degrees centigrade.

After spending another three years at the Empire Test Pilots' School as an instructor, Johnson was sent to the RAF Staff College, Bracknell, then became a staff officer at Fighter Command. In February 1962 he was appointed to command the Operations Wing at RAF Tengah, Singapore, the home of four RAF squadrons of Hunters, Javelins and Canberras and a RNZAF bomber squadron.

In November 1963 the generally even tenor of station life overseas was interrupted by the "confrontation" with Indonesia. With detachments of his squadrons in Malaysia, Kuching and Labuan, Johnson had a hectic time, commenting that "confrontation" became "a way of life, never reaching a climax but causing a good deal of frustration, proving that 'action stations' with no subsequent action is extremely debilitating".

On coming home, Johnson joined the staff of the RAF Staff College at Andover, where the student body was half British and half "visiting officers". The close association with many foreign air force personnel was to be important for his future.

Johnson retired from the RAF in 1969, having flown more than 100 types of aircraft, in order to join the Hawker Siddeley Aviation marketing team, led by Bill Bedford, the former chief test pilot, whom he eventually succeeded. While always keen to emphasise that marketing was a team game, Johnson was personally involved in most of the projects connected with the Harrier and then the equally successful Hawk.

He was greatly respected by the company's display and test pilots. A senior company pilot described him as "brilliant" at organisation and at ensuring that administrative details did not interfere with the pilots' duty of displaying the aircraft.

Johnson finally retired in 1988 to concentrate on golf and music; he also took pride in his Daimler. He wrote a light-hearted memoir, Finals: Three Greens (2000). In addition to his two DFCs, Johnson was awarded the Croix de Guerre.